


Lay Your Head

by Phoenixflames12



Category: Outlander Series - Diana Gabaldon
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-16
Updated: 2018-07-16
Packaged: 2019-06-11 11:11:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 756
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15314232
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Phoenixflames12/pseuds/Phoenixflames12
Summary: Caught in a hit and run accident on his way home from work, Jamie Fraser’s last moments are spent clinging to the memories of those he loves





	Lay Your Head

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on tumblr, this was written last summer and never posted until today. 
> 
> *Throws tissues out in general direction of audience, you'll need them!*

Sirens.

 

Shouts.

 

The street lit up with noise and voices and a crush of people surging somewhere, the heat of their bodies streaking past him as if the fast forward button on a remote has been pressed for too long.

 

He brings his head up above them, gulping in the crispness of the night, watching the beams of light that streaked across his vision with a detached awareness.

 

The lights flicker and dance before his vision, bright sparks piercing against the womb-like darkness of the night. He is a child once more as he sees them, a child that had been ripped from Ellen Mackenzie Fraser’s womb in a river of blood, sucking on stolen light, a stolen life.

 

‘Pretty’, he thinks, reaching up to cradle the lights, watching them filter and float through his fingers in a kieladscope of colour.

 

It is colour that burns, the heat rising from the darkness of the pavement. He staggers, somehow suddenly unable to stand.

 

_It does not matter now_ , he thinks. _All that matters now is that Claire is safe. Brianna, Roger, Fergus and Marsali are safe. He has provided all he can for them and now, if he is to die here, today, he can join the realms of his whispering dead with a clear conscious._

_He can already feel them whispering, voices that had been long forgotten in this world jostling at the corners of deep unconsciousness._

_‘You have done so well, mo mac. So verra, verra well.’ His parents, he thinks hazily, the warmth of his fathers’ smile and the depth of warm darkness in Brian’s eyes swimming before him._

_Perhaps it would not be so hard to die, after all._

The thought patters persistently against the steadily growing pain like rain on a cold window. Condensation fogs the glass and a memory of Brianna, aged seven or so, floats through the darkness, the image shoving through the dying chorus of exploding synapses. Brianna, aged seven or eight, sitting in the rear of the family car.

 

It had been mid December, the final rush for Christmas presents almost upon them and his daughter with her cascading mane of curls, ringlets of russet with hints of auburn and russet, glinting roan and amber, pressing her face against the frost fugged window.

 

He had passed the car with a grin, near staggering under a weight of books and wagged his ears at her. She had smiled, whole face lighting up at the sight of him.

 

_Lay your head man._

 

_The weight of Claire’s lap pressing up against his shoulder blades, holding him to earth when he had come home battered and fevered, reeling from a late night that had ended in an alcohol fuelled fist fight, over an unknown girl in a bar on Sauchiehall Street._

 

_It had been late in the year and he had stumbled home without a coat, all but falling into the rented flat._

_Lay your head man._

 

A streaking wail of red and blue, the unbearable heat of the pavement receding into soothing coolness.

 

The weight of fingers feeling desperately for a pulse.

 

The hush of voices, a palm pressed into his, forcing him to cling to life.

 

‘I’m here Jamie, I’m here. You’re going to be just fine.’

 

He catches that no-nonsense nurses’ tone in her voice that he loves so much, telling him that he does not have a choice in the matter.

 

_Ego te absolvo,_ a priest had told him after his brothers’ death, dragging his feet to mass because his father and Jenny wished it.

 

He had hated him. Hated the serene calmness, the fathomless hazel eyes that seemed so kind and yet understood nothing.

 

_Where are ye, Willie? Where are ye, a bhalaiach? Mo bhalaiach?_

_His soul had screamed then as he had lifted his palms to the priest and felt the hard skin of age and time fall into them._

_It screams now, fighting against the hand that holds it down._

_Ego te absolvo._

Around him, the ghosts of the past are gathering.

 

He can feel them, all of them, as surely as he can feel the weight of the hand in his, slowly slipping into nothingness.

 

‘I am sorry, _mo ghraidh_ ,’ his heart cries out to her, the darkness pressing firmly against his eyes. _Mo Sorcha. Sassenach. Claire._

 

‘I know’, he thinks he hears her say; the words choked with tears. As the darkness pulls him under, it is a comfort to think that after all these years, she can still cry for him.

* * *

 

**_Fin_ **

**Author's Note:**

> Please feel free to read and review! 
> 
> Comments, suggestions, constructive criticisms etc are like chocolate to my brain!
> 
> Much love and enjoy x


End file.
